


A Pocket Full Of Gold

by CaptainLordAuditor



Series: New Americana [4]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Child Neglect, Gen, Jewish Character, Pre-Canon, Self-Discovery, Trans Male Character, Trans Racetrack Higgins, Transitioning, jewish newsies, mentions of emotional/verbal abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15240015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor
Summary: She’d already been arrested once. What, really, did she have to lose?Or, Racetrack Higgins escapes the Refuge, steals some cigars, and has a few revelations about himself.





	A Pocket Full Of Gold

Dina Rivkin lay on the floor, pins in her hand. Everyone else was asleep, which was probably good. It meant she would have more time to work, and fewer distractions. She crawled forward until her hands were in the sliver of light that came in through the window from the street lamps outside.

It would be better, she supposed, if she could wake everyone up once she was ready; getting all of them out of here at once would cause a lot of chaos. Chaos was  _ good.  _ Chaos meant nobody saw her. Dina wasn’t used to people seeing her, and it would be a very bad thing here, in any case. She’d have to be very, very careful. That was okay; Dina was good at that.

She squinted at the pin in her hand again and grabbed one of the spokes in her fist, putting all of her strength into pulling it away from the other. The narrow metal bit into her palm and she hissed, dropped it, and shook her hand out. Almost there. She switched hands and grabbed it again, forcing the prong of the hairpin into almost a right angle. 

She should’ve thought of this earlier; stupid, not to. It was harder to do now than it would’ve been when she’d first come in. She was lightheaded from hunger, and her hands shook. If she’d thought of this two weeks ago, she’d have steadier hands. That would’ve made the next bit easier.

She heard footsteps outside the door. Dina grabbed her hairpin and shoved it into her blouse, crawling backwards until she was hidden entirely in the shadow of the bed she lay under. She leaned her ear against the floor, listening; more footsteps. It sounded like whoever it was was going away. The footsteps faded, and were gone. She lay there a few moments longer, barely daring to breathe, to be sure the adult really was gone, and then crawled back into the light.

Snyder was gone. Out to find more, what was the word he used? Delinquents, that was it. Dina pulled the hairpins out of the spot she’d shoved them down her collar. They weren’t too badly bent, thank goodness; it had taken her three days to bend the ends into the proper shape, like Laces had shown her. Tonight was just making sure the prongs were separate enough to  _ use _ .

And, of course, using them.

Dina crawled forward on her stomach, hopping to her feet when she was out from under the bed. She slipped over to the door and bent down. This was the hardest part. Her hands shook, both from hunger and nervousness. She’d never done this before - Laces had told her how it worked, and she’d watched Patches open the door like this once when Cowboy had gotten locked out. But  _ Dina _ had never done this.

She knelt on her knees, slid the hairpin - the  _ lockpick _ now, she supposed - into the lock and listened.

If she pressed right, Laces had said, she’d hear the tiniest click as a pin slid up. Some locks needed the pins pressed up in some fancy order, rather than farthest to closest, but nobody around here spent that much money on locks, even Snyder.

Funny, that. You’d think he’d spend money on keeping the sources of his payment in. Lucky for Dina that he didn’t.

The lock clicked open; Dina grinned, stowing her picks in her pockets. One in each, so they didn’t clink together. She pressed her ear against the door again, listening; nothing. She opened the door just enough that she could slip out and shut it behind her. It would be best if she could lock the door again behind her, but she didn’t have anything to lock it  _ with. _ Laces hadn’t told her if the picks could be used to relock a door, and she rather suspected they couldn’t, at least not the simple ones she’d made.

The hall was utterly silent and empty. There were no guards, Dina wondered, then answered her own question. Of course there weren’t. Guards cost money. 

She kept to the wall, padding in the direction she knew the stairs down would be. Halfway there, there was another door, this one open; Dina could see the light of an oil lamp burning inside. She stopped, pressing herself against the wall, listening for any sign of life in the room. When she heard nothing, she risked peering inside. It was empty, the only movement the flicker of the lamp, but something else caught her eye.

It was pretty obviously an office; there was a desk, and a nice chair, plusher than Dina had ever seen, and she had the urge to curl up in it and go to sleep. On the desk, beside the oil lamp, was a box of cigars.

Not just any box - no, Dina  _ knew _ that box. As well she should! That was the box that had gotten her here in the first place. It sat there, like it had sat in the shop, bright yellow in the flickering lamplight like a ray of Jerusalem sunshine in the dismal grey of New York. She should leave it; it had brought her so much trouble already. 

But it made her so angry, to think of it sitting there - opened, she was sure - on Snyder’s desk. Snyder had stolen it from her! That box belonged to Dina - it was hers, rightfully stolen, and she wasn’t about to let  _ Snyder _ have it. If it had been anyone else - the Adders, or the Ramsheads, maybe - she might be willing to let them take it. Dina knew the world wasn’t fair, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take life by the teeth and make it  _ be  _ fair when she wanted to.

She’d already been arrested once. What, really, did she have to lose? She went into Snyder’s office and grabbed the box.

It was opened; two were missing. Dina felt a twinge of anger at that, but there was nothing she could do about it. Snyder had gotten his share. They were hers now! Hers, to do with as she wanted - smoke, or give to her friends, or sell, or anything else she could think of.

That was when it occurred to her that the cigars weren’t the only thing on his desk.

There was the oil lamp. The box of Corona cigars. A fountain pen and ink, a nice lighter and matching ashtray, a few papers, and a pair of silver cufflinks. She didn’t need the paper, couldn’t take the fountain pen or the oil lamp, but she grabbed the lighter and the cufflinks. She wrapped them, along with her lockpicks, in paper, so they wouldn’t clink, and stuck them into her pockets. 

Was there anything else? She looked around the room. It was filled with things Dina never thought she’d see, let alone touch, but there wasn’t a lot she could  _ take _ . The bottle of whiskey would be fun, but hard to carry with her Coronas in her hand already. The clock on the wall that told her it was half-past midnight would be even harder. The safe, impossible. She opened the drawers in the desk one by one, seeing what was in them.

Files - no need to take those. She found the one with her name on it and read it quickly - it said about what she’d expected it to - then stuffed it into the oil lamp to burn. Pens and pencils. She thought about taking those just to be petty, and decided the pencils would make a good gift for Cowboy. She tossed them into the cigar box.

The fourth drawer she tried was locked. Dina paused, making sure nobody was coming, and set to work on it.

Either this lock wasn’t as nice, Dina was getting better with practice, or both. It felt like it took half the time to open the drawer that it had the door. She opened it, expecting jewelry, or money, or gold, only to feel her heart sink when she saw a ring of keys and a slip of paper.

Then she grinned. Money was mostly hard to use for Dina - people would notice a street kid with money or jewelry. She’d have to go to the Ramsheads to get rid of it, maybe. Keys, though - no doubt some of these keys opened the rest of the doors between her and freedom. About to close the drawer, she picked up the bit of paper.

On it was a string of numbers. The combination to the safe, Dina would bet her cigars on that. She took the paper, closed the drawer, and locked it with the keys. What did he do when he lost his other keys? How did he get into this drawer? It didn’t matter. Dina liked the image in her head of Snyder losing his keys and spending hours trying to get into the drawer to find his spare set only to discover they were gone. She almost wished she could be here to watch it when it happened.

Almost.

The safe opened with the combination, and pulling out its contents, Dina felt like she could’ve danced a jig right then and there. Quarters, dollar coins, a few bills. Together, they totalled seventeen dollars. Dina didn’t think she’d ever seen this much money at once. She pulled her shoes off and stuck as much as she could fit - Nine dollars worth - into them before pulling them back on. There was  _ no way _ she was risking losing them. She wanted to take more, but coins in her pockets would make noise when they hit each other.

_ Nine dollars. _ Dina had no idea what she was going to do with that. 

There was no use sticking around. Her pockets were full, she had everything she needed, and things she didn’t need but thought very satisfying. She listened before leaving the room, and slipped down the stairs. It took a lot more effort to stay quiet than it had before she’d found Snyder’s office. It took her two tries to open the door, not knowing which key was which.

When Dina got onto the street, she couldn’t resist doing a small dance before setting off confidently in the direction of the lodging house, cigar box under her arm. No Snyder, no cops, no Delanceys. She’d have work in the morning, and Mama would be angry about the hairpins, but for now, she was home free.

* * *

Jack woke up pushed to one side of the bed, something hard and sharp pressing into his side. He opened his eyes. The room was still dark - this time of year, the sun didn’t rise until they had gotten their papes, long after Jack woke up naturally - but he could see the figure of a small girl curled up beside him, a box in her hands.

“Racer?” All tiredness vanished from his head when he realised who it was. “Racer, what’s you doing here? Wake up.” Racer barely stirred. Jack elbowed her, pushing the blankets down and sitting up. He glanced around to be sure nobody else was awake, and switched to Yiddish. “Wake  _ up. _ ”

Racer yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Ma?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s Jack. What’s you doing here, Racer?”

Racer’s eyes widened and she scrambled up into a sitting position, dropping the box. It opened and a few cylinders rolled out, confirming Jack’s thought that it might be a cigar box. “Fuck!” she scrambled to grab them. A couple fell off the bed with a gentle  _ clack _ . Jack bent down and picked them up - they weren’t cigars, but pencils. He puzzled over this as he handed them to Racer and she stuck them back in the box.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “Uh - I got you something.” She thrust the open box at Jack. Inside was a mix of cigars and pencils. “The pencils’re for you.”

Jack took them, turning them over in his hands. They weren’t the nicest pencils he’d ever seen, but he hadn’t had more than a tiny stub of a pencil or a charcoal end to draw with for months. He put them with his hat hurriedly and hugged Racer. “Where’ve you  _ been _ ? None of us’ve seen you in two weeks!”

She hugged him back and mumbled something about the Refuge.

“But then - wait. Where’d you get these?” Jack held up one of the pencils. His eyes widened. “Is that why you was in there?”

“No!” Racer shoved the pencil back. “Look I - I was breaking out, and I thought...wouldn’t it be funny if Snyder didn’t have no pencils. Like, he just goes to write something down and there’s no pencils ‘cause I took ‘em when I broke out. And then I figured, you was out of things to draw with. So’s I took ‘em. I got something else, too,” she added excitedly. She sat back and pulled off one of her shoes, then turned it over in her hand. Several coins spilled out, and she showed them to Jack excitedly. “ _ Nine dollars, _ ” she told him. “He had more, but it wouldn’t fit in my shoes.”

Jack stared at the collection of quarters and silver dollars in her hands, then picked one up just to be sure it was real. He could count on his fingers the number of times he’d seen dollar coins, and he’d never held one before. “I ain’t never seen this much money at one time,” he whispered.

“Me neither.”

They stared at it for a few minutes, each one in awe of what Racer had stolen. “What’s you gonna do with it?” Jack finally asked.

“I dunno,” Racer confessed. “I thoughts maybe I could get shoes that fit, since these ones’re too small. But I’d still have lots left over.”

Jack reluctantly gave the coin back to Racer, thinking about what he’d do with nine dollars - or six or seven, once Racer got her shoes. He could get paint, and maybe some canvas, or paper, or a room to himself for a week or so...the possibilities seemed endless.

Then sense hit him and Jack’s heart sank. “Racer,” he said, “you gotta hide that. Snyder’s gonna notice it’s gone, and if he hears about a street kid flashing dollars, he’ll lock you up for good.”

Racer’s grin faded as she listened to Jack talk. “Yeah, I know. I gotta change ‘em for quarters and dimes at the least. Guess it was pretty stupid, right?”

“No, it was brilliant,” Jack told her. “How’d you do it? Tell me everything.”

Racer smiled again, this time slyly and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a crumpled ball of paper and took it apart before holding up her prize: a hairpin, bent out of shape into a lockpick.

Jack let out a whoop of laughter and jumped up. “Racer, you’s a genius!”

Racer laughed and hugged him, and Jack picked her up and spun her around, making her laugh even harder. Then they remembered that everybody else was sleeping and quieted down. Jack set Racer down, and her face sobered. “Am I? Mama’s gonna be mad about the hairpins. They was her bubbie’s.”

“So? She’ll be happier to have you back in one piece. And with nine dollars, too.” Nine dollars was enough to pay rent in Racer’s tenement for a couple months.

Racer didn’t seem so sure. “I can’t tell her how I got it.”

Jack considered this. Racer’s mother had always been one of those weird upstanding types who’d rather starve honest than live dirty. Near as Jack could figure, she was under the impression that the rich had gotten rich that way, and the only thing to do was to follow their example. Jack’s Tateh had never had that illusion. He had known the only way to get by was by stealing and lying, however much he’d hated it. 

Jack really missed Tateh, sometimes.

“She don’t approve of gambling, does she?”

Racer thought about it. “Probably not. I never heard her talk about it, but I bet she thinks it’s a waste.”

Jack made a face. “I was gonna say we could go down to the tracks and bet a couple dimes. Say you won it. It’d be partly true, at least.”

“We could do that anyway,” said Racer, smiling. “It’d be real fun. My Tateh taught me about horses, I bet I could spot a good one.”

Jack lit up like a beacon. “You knows horses? Can you teach me about ‘em? Tateh -”

He was cut off by the door opening. Ben grinned at them cheerfully -  _ too _ cheerfully, by Jack’s standards, though he was already as awake as Ben. Ben was always like this; it was why they’d voted him and Finch to wake up the others. Those two were always up first, and the least likely to be grumpy about it.

He blinked at them a moment. “Racer? I missed you! Don’t you know, this ain’t no place for a girl!” Ben came in and ruffled her hair, then hugged her to himself one armed. 

“It was just for now,” she laughed, squirming against his hug. “I got out of the Refuge last night and needed somewhere to bed down, I’m going home again tonight.”

Jack grinned and tucked the coins Racer had pulled out into the cigar box. Seeing them like this, they could’ve been siblings, making fun of each other with grins and mock offense. 

Jack tucked the cigar box under his mattress. Who needed a Tateh when you could have twenty-seven siblings?

* * *

“Hey, Cowboy?” Dina went over the money she’d stolen again in her head.

“Yeah?” He craned his neck, looking for someone.

“Can Ben read?”

Cowboy glanced at her, kind of confused, then looked back at the crowd. “‘Course he can. Medda made sure both of us could. Said we had to know what we was selling. I can read English and Russian both and Ben can read English.” There was an unspoken agreement between them that in public they didn’t speak Yiddish, or even mention it, but Cowboy could read Yiddish, too. “Why?”

“‘Cause I saw him squinting at the papes this morning and when he saw me watching him he hid it.”

Cowboy waved at someone else. “Yeah, he’s been doing that. Tell you the truth I think he’s having trouble seeing. He keeps making me read for him. Says he wants to make sure I gets the practice but I hardly ever get the chance to read Russian anymore. Ain’t like anyone’s got Tolstoy lying around, right?”

“Right.” Dina wasn’t really listening, but her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a boy with a red shirt and pink suspenders. His colors said he was a Ramshead, one of the boys who worked for Flip, who held Sheepshead and parts of Flatbush and northern Brooklyn.

“You ain’t supposed to be here,” he said. He was short, around the same height as Dina, but he was… unsettling. She felt exposed, like he could tell everything about her just from looking at her. She had the feeling he didn’t like what he saw, either, but it was hard to tell.

“Races is neutral territory,” Cowboy reminded him. Probably because nobody could afford to spend much time hanging around them. “Besides, I ain’t here for no reason, I got a message from Fidget for Flip.”

The kid looked at him, like he was looking through them into their heads. He blinked slowly and nodded, holding out his hand. Cowboy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. He put it in his pocket. Dina wondered if he even needed to read it to know what it said.

His grey eyes slid over to Dina, then flickered back to Cowboy. “Who’s your friend?”

“Racer,” said Cowboy. “She knows horses.” He jerked his head at their companion. “Racer, meet Spot Conlon. Message boy for Flip.”

“I do other things, too,” said Spot. He looked at Dina like she was a new kid he was trying to decide how best to teach selling to. “So, you knows horses.”

Dina nodded. It didn’t seem the kind of statement that needed a verbal answer.

Spot shook his head. “I don’t know why you brought her,” he told Cowboy. “Knowing horses is useless. Half the races here is fixed. You ain’t gotta know horses, just the right people.” Dina would lay money on that being harder.

“Aw, come on,” Cowboy clapped his hand on Spot’s shoulder. “Look, Racer here, she got a little money doing house work for the Spider. So I figure, we should have a little fun. We’s been working our asses off, we deserves it.”

Spot snorted. “Yeah, sure, you feels like losing your money, you’s free to. You gonna look over the horses first, or not? It don’t matter much.”

Dina and Cowboy looked at each other and shrugged. 

In the end, they looked over the horses briefly, but they didn’t have much time left to place bets before the race started. Spot abstained, saying he knew which one was gonna win but wouldn’t share. Cowboy bet his dime on a stallion named Cowboy Culture - Dina wasn’t surprised in the least. Dina put hers on one called Slips-N-Jangles. 

Spot looked at her oddly. Slips-N-Jangles hadn’t looked like much when they’d seen her in her pen. “You know she ain’t gonna win, right?”

Dina shrugged. “She might not win, but she’ll place.”

Spot just shook his head.

Dina couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t tell why she thought Slips-N-Jangles would place; she just did.

The race started; it was a short one, and she had to crane her neck to see around the adults, but Dina didn’t mind. It was like a good selling day, being pressed by the crowd on all sides, but everyone was in a good mood, cheering and yelling for whichever horse they’d bet on. Only Spot was quiet, slipping in and out of the crowd near them, returning with a grin on his face and his hands in his pockets. 

Cowboy saw he’d left and ignored it until Spot slipped back. “Ain’t Flip gonna be mad? He keeps races neutral, don’t he?” Speaking in a normal tone suited for a whisper in the roar of the races.

Spot chuckled. “Who said nothing about telling him?”

Cowboy laughed but Dina was distracted by the races. They were almost at the finish line; Jet Fire and Slips-N-Jangles were right next to each other - they were  _ so close _ \- Jet Fire pulled ahead, Slips-N-Jangles following and Dina cheered. 

She’d been  _ right _ . Spot had been right about the races being fixed, maybe, but she’d tried her luck and won. Well, placed. No, Slips-N-Jangles had placed, Dina had won. She hugged Cowboy, grinning until she felt like her face was about to split, and went to collect her winnings. 

At eight-to-one odds, Dina had gotten eighty cents back from her bet; removing the cut to the house and the ten cents she’d bet before left her with sixty. She didn’t get much selling done that day - the walk to and from the races took most of her day, and when she and Cowboy got back it was almost time for her to go home.

So she went home.

The room she lived in with Mameh, Erik, Shifra and Yakov looked exactly the same as when she’d left. Dina didn’t know why she’d expected anything to change. Barely two weeks had passed, after all. 

She went in, and Mameh nodded her greeting and held out her hand for her money. Dina reached into her pocket and handed her the sixty cents from the races - she’d give the rest later, once she thought of an explanation. Mameh looked at them and frowned, then sighed. Dina didn’t say anything.

Erik and Shifra hugged her hello. Dina ruffled their hair, and pulled Yakov away from the stove, and helped Mameh with dinner.

They ate dinner. They went to bed. Dina lay next to her siblings, wide awake in the night, and wondered why she couldn’t sleep here the way she had at the lodging house.

There was something missing, she decided. She shared a bed with Erik and Shifra here - but she’d shared a bed with Cowboy at the lodging house, and Cowboy sprawled more and was bigger. 

Dina rolled over onto her stomach and reached under the bed to where her shoes were, and where she’d hidden the cigar box after carrying it home tucked into her skirts. Carefully, she eased the cigar box out from under the bed and put it on her pillow, staring at it, her chin resting on her hands.

When she’d gone to the lodging house that morning, Cowboy had been glad to see her. He’d taken the pencils, sure, but he’d hugged her and spun her around like she spun Shifra and smiled to see her, and taken her to do something fun, and asked her how she’d gotten out and where she’d been and….

And Mameh hadn’t. Mameh hadn’t even seemed to notice Dina was gone. 

That wasn’t fair, a little voice inside Dina said. Mameh had a lot on her plate, trying to keep Erik and Shifra and Yakov occupied and out of trouble when they weren’t at school, and trying to work at the factory. It wasn’t fair to expect her to keep track of Dina, who spent most of her day on her own also working. 

But all the time Dina  _ didn’t _ spend working she spent helping out Mameh. Someone needed to help with dinner, and keep Yakov from stuffing everything into his mouth. Since Tateh had died, that person had been Dina. Shouldn’t Mameh miss her all the more, for her work if nothing else?

Cowboy had taken her pencils and set them aside to hug her, but Mameh had taken her dimes and ignored her.

Dina scowled and put the cigar box back its hiding spot, then turned over and tried to get some sleep. Things would just improve, she was sure. She was imagining things.

Except, she realised as the week wore on, that they didn’t. Every evening was the same. Dina came home, gave Mameh the money she’d earned, looked after her siblings and helped with chores. Every morning she got up, took the money she needed to buy papes for the day, went out, and wash rinse repeat.

And every evening, Mameh would unfailingly greet her with a nod, and Erik and Shifra and Yakov would hug her around the knees and waist. No more and no less than they had when she’d first gotten home from the Refuge. It was like she’d never been gone. Or like her absence didn’t matter.

On Friday, Dina stared at the paltry thirty two cents in her hand that was the day’s profits. It had rained most of the day, and not many people had been out and about, and that had cut into her profits. Plus the ink ran when it rained, and she’d had to throw out some of her papes.

Thirty two cents. Twenty five of that would go to tomorrow’s papes. That left her with seven cents.

Mameh would be angry if she came home with thirty two cents. She might not say anything, but Dina could tell. Then again, she might yell and scold and call Dina all sorts of things that she had before and had made Dina want to curl up and cry. And she wouldn’t get the chance to make it up tomorrow, since it would be shabbos. She could give Mameh some of what she’d stolen from Snyder, sure, but she still hadn’t yet thought of a good explanation and it seemed a bald faced lie to say she’d made her full fifty cents on a day like today. 

Or…..

Dina set off to the trolley station where she knew Cowboy would be selling the last of his papers. 


End file.
